Ice skate blades are typically fixed rigidly to ice skate boots. This arrangement serves an important purpose since the blades must remain stationary relative to the skater's feet. However the blades quickly dull and require sharpening. Dull blades seriously impair a skaters performance and can become a safety hazard. Skating enthusiasts and professionals thus require at least one pair of sharp skates per performance. Since ice skates are expensive, owning several pairs is burdensome.
As a solution of the above problem, quick change blades have been proposed to enable a skater to use one set of boots and several sets of skate blades. Various mounting mechanisms have been developed to enable changing from one set of blades to another. These mechanisms and interchangeable blades have not been satisfactory for several reasons.
Firstly, interchange mechanisms have typically been designed to latch the blades to skate frames by providing gripping or latching actions that operate to exert holding forces on the blades in longitudinal directions (with respect to the lengths of the blades). They release by application of opposite longitudinal forces being applied to the latching or gripping devices. Such longitudinal forces can, in certain circumstances be applied through the skate blades, as when the skates strike an object. The consequence can be undesired and unpredictable release or loosening of the blades in the skate frames, often during use.
Other interchangeable mechanisms are quite cumbersome and difficult, making "quick changing" an unrealistic goal.
Still other interchangeable mechanisms require attachments on the skate blades themselves that are bulky and interfere with sharpening equipment and procedures.
An object of the present invention is therefor to provide a quick change blade mechanism that will not release by application of longitudinal forces being applied to the skate blade.
Another object is to provide such a quick change blade mechanism that facilitates quick and easy interchange of blades.
A further object is to provide a quick change blade that is unencumbered with latching or fastening mechanisms and that can be easily produced and that can further be easily secured for sharpening.
These and further objects and advantages will be understood from the following description which, taken with the accompanying drawings, describe a presently preferred mode of carrying out the present invention.